


Some People Paint

by minkmix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Horror, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 05:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18542932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: (early S4) Dean POV. A hunt goes wrong and the Winchesters become the next victims of a demented doll collector.





	1. Chapter 1

The sound of ripping fabric roused Dean from a deep sleep.

There was a scratchy record playing an old song. One of those tunes with a high pitched woman’s voice, nasally seductive with a brass band that was real big during the world wars. He opened his eyes and saw a cracked plaster ceiling and a chandelier, the dusty crystal rocking slightly with the cold breeze flowing through the window.

“Dean?”

Even with the view, it took him a few moments to realize he wasn’t laying in bed at a motel or the practiced slump behind the steering wheel. There was a dull echo of pain throbbing through his back and shoulders that he knew came from spending too long laying in the same position on a hard surface. Flexing his hands he found them unrestrained. His heart began to pound faster at the feel of the splintered grooves of a wooden table. With a moan of frustration his legs did nothing but twitch as he attempted to sit up.

“D-Dean, please…”

He tried to turn his head towards Sam, but everything other than directly overhead was out of his field of vision. From the strained edge in Sam’s voice he knew that his brother was in pain. The old house they’d found was the nest of the beast they’d spent days looking for. Dean closed his eyes again and struggled to recall the last thing he could remember.

An overgrown garden in the beam of their flashlights. Crumbling cement steps. And then nothing.

“Sam,” Dean breathed. “You… You okay?”

“It didn’t work, Dean,” Sam panted. “The bullets didn’t work.”

His brother was somewhere on the other side of the room, unable to catch his breath and weakly moving on the creaky planks of the floor. Dean might not have been restrained but from the sound of it Sam had been. And from the look of things, the plan to walk in and take care of business before dinner time hadn’t exactly panned out they way they had planned. The silver bullet idea obviously had been a bust. So much for all the tedious research and weeks of tracking…

“Stay with me, man,” Sam said. “Say something.”

Opening his eyes again, he felt his mouth moving but the words came out half formed and incoherent. The shriek of ripping cloth forced him from sinking back into his daze, the sudden feel of cool air on his exposed skin making him clench his jaw as the rest of his clothing was meticulously removed. He shivered when the graze of the knife whispered up the inside of his thigh and then jerked with a stifled moan when the gentle touch turned brutal as the seam at the crotch proved more difficult to cut free. The buttons of his flannel were carefully worked open one by one, then his T-shirt was lifted, sliced with one motion up the center of his chest and then sliced free from under his arms.

Cold fingers lingered on the tattoo over Dean’s heart, tracing its shape thoughtfully before withdrawing.

“I can’t move,” Sam’s voice shook. “…hard to breathe…”

Dean focused his eyes on the wavering light of the dim bulbs sways overhead. The beast standing above him looked vaguely human. A smooth featureless face had deep punctures where its eyes should be. It had a raw slash for a mouth and no nose, its flesh a stark alabaster white that Dean dully recognized was paint. All the bodies they’d had found in the past month had been painted the same startling color, their faces and bodies adorned and decorated with the masterful skill of a maniac artist.

“It took my gun,” Sam was struggling again. “T-The incantations didn’t work.”

“S’okay,” Dean said. “It’s okay.”

He groaned at the shock of something scorching hot pour over his belly, the steam from a copper kettle wafting over him like smoke. A washcloth moved over his skin, over his stomach and down between his legs with the slick feel of soap. He stifled a gasp when he was abruptly blinded, a heavy washcloth draped over his face and firmly patted down. He tried to resist as each hand was taken and cleaned, his ring removed and bracelets snipped off with the brisk click of scissors.

Dean blinked in confusion when the washcloth was peeled away. Staring up into the pinpricks of its eyes, he watched it tilt its head to examine his necklace before yanking it off.

“How long?” Dean asked Sam. “How long was I out?”

“Not sure,” Sam answered. “Day maybe.”

The cold hands were as strong as they were careful, rolling Dean over and dragging him up onto his shaking knees. Unable to lift himself off his elbows, he had to rest his forehead on his folded arms as the thing kept him securely upright by sliding an arm under his hips. Dean couldn’t hold back his cry when the boiling water hit the small of his back, streaming down the cant of his spine and into his hair. There was a hard bristled brush this time, harshly scrubbing his sides and the backs of his thighs.

“What’s happening?” Sam demanded. “Talk to me!”

Dean had a few seconds to wonder why Sam was unable to see before another painful deluge of water struck. This time on the back of his neck, running down his arms and soaking the dry wood of the table black. He choked as some of it got into his mouth, searing down the sides of his face and stinging his eyes.

“Bastard’s washing me,” Dean gasped. “L-Like a goddamn horse…”

The creature paused in its work to make a strange guttural sound, its lipless mouth emitting a low hiss like an attempt to soothe and calm a nervous animal. Dean squeezed his eyes shut when the brush moved roughly over his calves and the backs of his feet. He braced himself when it moved up his thighs and scrubbed in long even strokes. He growled in anger when the sharp bristles began to scrub between his legs, struggling through sluggish senses to will his body to move and fight. But whatever had put him to sleep had also weakened him. He could barely keep his eyes open, the exhausting effort to stay alert making his heart race faster as he realized that being completely aware might not be such a fantastic idea given the circumstances. In the dim lamp light he decided to concentrate on what else he could see in the cluttered room instead of the hands on his body. Besides the window wedged open and crooked on its sagging frame, there were candles wavering on their wicks and melting in pools of red wax. But everywhere else, stuffed on the shelves and sitting on what could be seen of the floor, there was something else that worried Dean a lot more than hot water.

Everywhere he looked there were dolls.

Old, new, and in all shapes and sizes they sat in row after row with large doleful eyes. But these weren’t the charming porcelain antiques that a little girl would keep arranged in a bed of stuffed animals. All of them had been changed. Their little mouths and blank glass stares had been altered and remade to the liking of the demented collector. Dean winced as the water came again, steaming rising off his skin as the brush continued to scour him raw.

“I-I don’t feel too good,” Sam stammered. “I’m not sure if I can… I don’t know if I can stay awake…”

The fog lulling him back into unconsciousness began to descend as his brother’s words began to fade.

But all Dean could think of was the first victim they’d found. The young woman had been unclothed and painted completely black. Flat and shiny and smelling like cheap spray paint. The only decorations had been on her face and chest, broad alien eyes over her breasts and large red marks flowing from wide open eyes that had looked like tears.

“I think… I think…” Sam’s voice was barely a whisper. “I think we’re in trouble.”

Dean was about to try and say something mindlessly reassuring, but the hands roaming his body suddenly stopped. He grunted as he was rolled over onto his back, the respite of the brush lasting only a few moments before a coarse towel began to thoroughly dry him. His thoughts wandered to the next dead body they had found in the woods off the highway. That one had been a lot more complicated. A man had been transfigured into something closer to the pink rose bud of lips and rosy cheeks of a toy. Some of the others they discovered had been oddly copied in death to mimic life. Their original features exaggerated and replicated over their own.

“Hang in there, Sammy,” Dean said. “…hang in there, ok?”

Pink spittle oozed from the beast’s mouth as the gash of its lips contorted into a smile.

The people they had found had all died of asphyxiation but it wasn’t because of the coroners reports of traces of chloroform. Dean knew that the chemical had only been a means to subdue this beast’s finds. What this all came down to was the body’s need to breathe. If you covered a human being completely in coats of paint the body suffered a slow suffocation. Every pore smothered so the air couldn’t make contact with the body’s largest organ.

Skin.

The smell of soap filled his senses as it was lathered over the stubble on his face. A finger tip gently tipped up his chin so the edge of razor blade could run in a smooth line down his cheek and along his jaw. He closed his eyes again as the beast continued with its preparations.

Even with Sam’s gift for the obvious Dean didn’t think the word ‘trouble’ even came close to covering it.

 

////////


	2. Some People Paint

It was a cloth dripping with chloroform that put him under again.

This time when he woke he found one wrist cinched tight with rope with no slack from a ring bolt embedded into the table. With his free hand he explored what had been done to him. All the hair besides his eyebrows and what was on his head had been shaved. The sky outside the window had turned dark with nightfall, the air even colder as it whispered across his naked skin.

“S-Sammy?”

His stomach lurched when he heaved himself upwards, at least able to sit up on one elbow to see the rest of the room. There were more dolls cluttering the floors, a threadbare sofa pushed against the cold fireplace and a few stuffed in the hearth itself. Several of them had abnormally large proportions, lifelike in their stiff postures in chairs and on the flight of steps that spiraled to a second floor. There was one particularly large doll glittering metallic next to the rusty radiator. It had been half buried in smaller dolls less than half its size with its face almost obscured by their tattered dresses and curls of shiny hair.

It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at was his brother. Dean blinked, trying to focus the distance. It was Sam slumped awkwardly with a bed sheet covering him up to his waist, but Dean could see bare skin at the tops of his undone jeans. Both wrists were tied above his head and tight around his throat before looping back through the radiator that reached half way to the ceiling. And while Dean’s skin remained unmarked, the beast had already gotten to Sam.

“S-Sam?” Dean rasped. “You hear me?”

Everything on his brother’s upper body had been matted with gold, including his hair. Dean briefly wondered about the selection of that particular color. It reminded him too much of the demon they’d killed. Yellow Eyes had pupils that churned like molten metal, and Dean wondered if somehow the beast had seen the same tint in Sam’s eyes while it forced him down onto one of these tables.

“Hey!” Dean hoarse voice was as loud as he could make it. “Rise and shine!”

Sam jerked awake but he didn’t open his eyes.

As Sam turned his head the weak candlelight glinted on something on his face. Dean’s mouth went dry as realized it was some kind of packing tape. Two perfect circles of clear plastic had been glued over Sam’s eyes to seal them shut. And although Sam had been painted a solid gold there were parts of him that had been left alone. The clean band around his eyes and either side of his face made his natural skin look like a mask. Yanking at his trapped wrist, Dean fell back weakly onto the table, the effort to sit up making his head spin and the room tilt sickening from side to side.

“Dean?” Sam asked. “Are you okay?”

“Sure.” Didn’t hurt to lie to the guy considering he couldn’t even see. “Where did that thing go?”

“Upstairs.”

Dean glanced back at the steps and hoped the thing required a night’s sleep just like anyone else. He also attempted not to ponder what kind of dolls it might snuggle up to keep it some company in bed. But the gruesome thoughts went away as he realized something about Sam‘s appearance was bothering him. “Why aren’t you all dressed up like the others?” he asked “Why do you still have skin showing?”

“I didn’t think to ask,” Sam muttered. “Maybe I’m a work in progress.”

“No luck gettin’ free then, huh?”

“There’s rope and some chain,” Sam wrenched at his hands. “Nothin’ around to pick with.”

Nothing Sam could see but Dean could see just fine for the both of them. He scanned the area all around Sam and the dolls that covered every square inch of the place. One of them caught his attention almost right away. It was a small ornate doll that had been augmented with jewelry.

“On your left Sam,” Dean told him. “It’s up against your knee. One of this bastard’s toys is wearing some earrings.”

“Sounds great,“ Sam twisted at his hands. “How am I supposed to get to it?”

“Move your knee, real slow…“ Dean noticed that his brother was panting again even though he was sitting still. It was that heavy metallic paint, smothering his pores and suffocating him nice and slow. “Try to knock the thing into your lap.”

Sam took a deep breath and attempted to do just that. And to Dean’s dazed disbelief it actually worked. But the doll and her metal jewelry might has well been on the other side of the moon. Sam’s hands were lashed securely over his head and Dean could see he’d already twisted them raw and bleeding trying to work his way loose.

“I-I’m real tired Dean,” Sam admitted with some poorly hidden shame. “…hard to stay awake.”

“Don’t worry, “ Dean said. “We'll figure it out."

Sam might have been a work in progress but whatever work the beast had performed was doing its slow and horrible work. The thought of the things hands on his brother made him sick and swiftly turned his frustration into anger.

“Sam?”

His brother was silent.

Dean forced himself to sit up again and saw that his brother was slumped back in the pile of dolls again, the only evidence that he was still alive was the slow rise and fall of his bare chest.

“Great.”

That didn’t leave him much to do but examine the objects arranged neatly on the work table next him.

Brushes were tools of the trade of course. They ranged from the large type a guy could take to the side of a house, down to the smallest and most delicate sable brushes with fragile handles of etched ivory. There were other more worrisome things. There were metal spades of all sizes that were used for smoothing plaster or evening out spackle. Unmarked jars and tins smelled vaguely like the materials used for restoring corpses in funeral homes.

He blinked uncertainly when he spotted a black object sitting almost buried with the brushes. It was little less than half a foot long and several inches in circumference. Dean let out a shuddering breath when he realized what it was.

“Fuck.”

Although Dean hadn’t thought to check on the bodies they had found, the coroner’s report had included the presence of one the things placed within each an every corpse that had ended up in the morgue. It was a tool used by morticians to keep the contents of the intestines from any leaking during the small window of time in which the body was displayed in a coffin for viewing. It wasn’t meant to be used on a living person although it had been manufactured with screw-like threads to ease insertion. Dean tried real hard not to think about what part of the body that happened to be.

Footsteps distracted him.

The beast was coming slowly down the stairs, adjusting and up righting any of its collection it thought were out of place. It paused over Sam, checking his pulse and smoothing one of its long white hands carefully over his cheek as to not mar the gold it had painstakingly applied. Satisfied that Sam was still subdued, it straightened with a sickening crackle of its spine and regarded Dean attentively.

“My turn, huh?” Dean swallowed. “Don’t rush on my account.”

Its long hands lingered over its tools before it leaned down to reveal the palette it had chosen for its newest doll. Dean stared at about a dozen cans of spray paint. He thought of the girl they’d found, ebony skin shining like she’d been waxed and polished before the collector had settled down to do all the heinous detail that had made her even more startling.

The beast’s hand paused over the black threaded plug that was supposed to used on cadavers.

“T-That’s really not necessary,” Dean quickly said. “I’d be totally cool with it if we just skipped that part-”

It shared that grotesque smile with him again. Dean wasn’t sure but he thought it might have yawned immediately after wards, the gape of flesh widening to reveal a gray tongue and right down its gleaming raw esophagus. He tried to turn his face away as the chloroform was pressed over his nose and mouth again, but it wasn’t held long enough to render him unconscious. The effect was a dizzying half sleep that left him just aware enough of what was going to happen but too weakened to do anything to stop it.

“No,” Dean groaned weakly as his knee was lifted and legs parted. “ _You mother fuc-ah!_ ”

It hurt.

Bad.

“Stop… _fuck….you son of a bitch_ …”

It was enough that hot tears gathered at the corner of his eyes, his breath coming in short gasps of pain. The plug felt much wider than it had looked, pushing into his body and filling it, the steady hand easing it in being very mindful of how gentle the process required. Dean squeezed his eyes shut when he realized that there was nothing he could do but wait for it to be over. His hands trembled as he grasped the table as he was slowly skewered, inch by impossible inch until it finally stopped.

Fingers tested the thing firmly wedged between his legs, maddeningly lingering to check that it had been inserted properly. He writhed on the intrusion deep in his body, spreading him and making him feel even more exposed than he already was.

Dean blinked his eyes open when suddenly a respiratory mask was slipped over his face. It was the filter kind that the professionals used if there was going to be some toxic aerosol used indoors without adequate ventilation. The noisy rattle of a spray paint can brought him immediately back into further focus. He winced when he felt the first pass of the paint spray cross coldly along his thigh. Trying not to move around too much, he stilled when it was briskly followed by a damp wash cloth. Dean dimly approved of the old technique that avoided unsightly streaking.

And it looked like his base coat was going to be flat white.

Turning his head, he saw other spray bottles or various colors sitting with all the other tools meant to transform him into something else. Heavy lacquers. Acrylic sealants. Pots of cadaver makeup sitting in an old wooden tray.

“S-Sam?” His voice was muffled by the mask but he tried anyway. “It’s gonna be fine, Sam.”

The spray came again and again, coating him liberally down his legs and working up along his torso. If anyone asked Dean his opinion he would have said that white was a pretty boring choice considering the subject. But with a wave of nausea , he was fairly positive that the base coat was just the start to the masterpiece.

“You hear me, Sam?” he breathed. “W-We’re getting out of here.”

A hand pressed over his eyes as the spray began to coat his throat and face. Choking on the fumes, Dean tried to stay as still as he could, unwilling to experience the consequences for messing up the painstaking process. Because he had a pretty good idea that this was going to take a while.

And like any good artist, the details and embellishments usually came at the very last.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I read in some far off review that they couldn't read it cuz Deans mouth was sewn shut. It tooka lot for me to Not Correct Her. HA (i never respond except here)

“You are very unattractive,” it said. “You are also much too old.”

Dean stilled at the first words that had come dripping from the thing’s mouth. And what had been said wasn’t entirely unexpected. He was, after all, dealing with a creature that appraised true form and sought its own version of warped beauty anywhere it could be stolen. Wondering if he should have told the guy what his canvas had looked like before the hellfire makeover, he decided instead to be proud of the unaesthetics of fresh scars and scabbed wounds.

“Do not be afraid,” it told him resolutely. “I can fix.”

Dean hissed when a cold glob of spackle burned on his skinned knees, spread evenly to be sure to cover all imperfections.

“It is better when they are young,” it nodded. “It is better when they are fresh.”

Moving was getting harder and harder to do.

Dean began to really notice it after the creature had finished applying a sticky lacquer that gave the white a pleasant glossy shine. As it dried he found that even lifting his arm required effort. As he was slowly being encased in his own skin, he had nothing but the limited range of his vision to watch for what was going to come next. The wide brush dripping with thick sealant was put aside for a much smaller instrument.

He tensed when his stiff hand was eagerly lifted.

Each finger was fused together until it was impossible to even make a fist. After a few hours, the artist had propped him up on his side for easier access to his shoulders. It gave him a perfect view of the shiny black polish on the nails of his hands.

“Y-You sure about all the black and white?” Dean asked. “I’ve always thought of myself as more of an autumn.”

It paused to study the tray of paints before dabbing a brush into a pot of pearly silver. The air left Dean’s lungs as he was slammed onto his stomach, his body shuddering as the slick feel of the brush ran along his spine in a perfect line. Dean wasn’t sure what was making him more dizzy, the stifling fumes of the spray paint still hanging in the air or the feel of meticulous strokes being applied perpendicular to his spine. The brush continued down the subtle cant of his sides and over his ass. The brush moved onto his hips, his legs and finally feathered with a delicate precision over his ankles and feet.

“Halloween’s two weeks away you know,” Dean muttered into the table. “But I doubt you’re the kind of guy that leaves a carved pumpkin at the door.” The strength in its withered frame worried him, the long wiry skeleton laced with muscle was imbued with something that made it more powerful than nature should have allowed. “Think of the bright side?” he tried a grin. “An ugly fucker like you won’t even need a mask--”

A long bony finger pressed against Dean’s lips and the slit of its mouth twisted into something that Dean guessed wasn’t mirth.

“Shhhhhhhhhh,” foam gathered at the corners of its lips. “No more noises.”

Dean had been pushed onto his back again, giving him nothing to look at but the holes of his keeper’s eye sockets. He had witnessed this thing’s patience, indulgence and even compassion. But this time it was anger. After a brief search through the pile of equipment, the beast produced a dented metal tube with a cap crusted to its top. As soon as Dean realized what the stuff was, he humiliated himself by making a small sound of fear at the back of his throat. There weren’t too many uses for a tube of super glue on a human body and Dean had no doubt that his handler had something special in mind.

As long fingers fumbled the top off of the glue, Dean decided to go for a distraction tactic.

“What about my brother?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with him? W-Why isn’t he talking anymore.”

“Brother?”

The word seemed to confuse the monster, but after a moment of consideration the bewilderment shifted into a grotesque display of pleasure. “You have many brothers now,” it proudly swept out its frail arms. “I have given you brothers and sisters that will stay with you forever and ever.”

Dean braced himself when the hands gripped his knees, sealed with the paint and lacquer, it made a sickening noise as his thighs were painfully parted. The feather light of the small brushes moved more carefully between his legs. He clenched his jaw as his flesh was lifted and examined before another shade of silver was selected. Dean started breathing again as the brush moved up his belly and then to his chest. Through the haze of his thoughts he began to speculate what he might look like. Every decorated body they’d found either out in the woods or in the brightly lit morgues had all had a bizarre amount of details and none of them had been the same. He wondered if this was the position he was meant to stay in, or maybe later his bones would be broken and contorted into the pose the beast preferred.

He tried to stop his hands from trembling.

A small brush coated in black moved around his eyes, creating large circles that reached over his brows and met at his cheekbones. The strokes then came over his mouth in what Dean could only guess were something like stripes, beginning above his lip and ending at his chin. It was very repetitive, being retouched, over and over and over again… With a slow exhale Dean realized he somehow managed to drift off.

When he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was the small tube of glue.

“This part is most unpleasant,” it lisped. “But I assure you it will be quick.”

He tried to fight it when the cold hands worked into his jaw to open his mouth. Before he could bite those fingers off something had been wedged in there to prevent him. Dean groaned around the mouthpiece when he saw the glue being squirted liberally on a latex finger. The beast worked quickly, no doubt aware of the quick drying time of the industrial adhesive. The sharp taste of the chemical flooded across his tongue as it was coated on his back teeth and the tops of his front. The wedge was promptly removed and his jaw clamped shut again by those freakishly strong hands. Dean could feel the stuff solidifying even as he tried to grind his teeth to keep it from getting a decent hold. He was so distracted he barely noticed another swipe of the glue being rubbed liberally along his upper and lower lip.

“You are almost completed.”

Fear flared and deteriorated into pure panic. He couldn’t open his mouth. He could even raise his arm. The thing leaning over him sensed his distress and affectionately rested a hand on his forehead. The crooning noise came again, gurgling from its phlegm filled throat and whispering from its wet lips. Without another word, it pushed small balls of the spackle into each of Dean’s ears and smoothed them until all Dean could hear was the frantic thud of his heart and the wheeze of his dwindling breath.

And then Dean’s vision began to tunnel.

In a desperate effort to make a move before he was completely gone he heard a strange crackling noise. With a wave of nausea he realized it was his own body, trapped in layers of paint and hardened like set fiberglass. With the last of his strength, he turned his head to see if he could catch sight of his brother.

The corner Sam had been seated in was empty.

But it seemed another large table by the window was in use. Dean stared at the dull glitter of the gold paint in the firelight, thankful that Sam’s jeans were still on and that maybe it meant that he was still far from ‘completed‘. Making as much noise as he could, Dean made a muted plea for Sam to look in his direction. And Sam did hear him, slowly turning his head to blindly search for the source of the sound. Desperate to reach him in any way he could, he started to repeat Sam, name in his head, hoping against hope that somehow his brother’s freakish freak brain might pick it up….

_Sam. Sammy. Sam, please help me. I’m drowning. I can’t breathe. I can’t-_

Sam sat up.

The clear plastic tape over his brother’s eyes hadn’t been removed but it had been changed, decorated with orange, red and yellow of flames that seeped down his cheeks in the shapes of scythes. Dean was startled when the hearth burst forth in a crack and hiss of scorching heat. The creature had started a fire, unconcerned with the dolls he had stacked in there in lieu of wood. As the light grew brighter, Dean couldn’t tell if the fire covering Sam’s eyes had actually been the act of a brush and hand. Watching the shadows slip and slide Sam’s face, he began to wonder if maybe the marks were real. As the blaze in the hearth grew, the flames appeared to be living, breathing and surging from Sam’s eye sockets with each strong heave of his chest. It didn’t occur to him until then that his brother shouldn’t have been able to sit up and get to his feet.

Sam stood for a moment before leaning down and picking up the fire poker on the floor.

The monster feeding the hearth didn’t notice. It was much too delighted by how the flames hungrily ate up the dolls fine locks of hair and melted their faces into soundless screams.

Sam moved quietly behind it.

Dean winced at the obscene sound it let out when the poker sank into its back and with a twist of Sam’s wrist, emerged from its chest. The horrible screams continued as it fell forward and pitched into the inferno, sending smoking embers scattering across the floor as it thrashed and cried in a strange high pitched wail.

Dean eyes fell closed.

Hell had been a lot like this.

And when he woke up he had no doubt in his mind that it would start all over again.

 

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

It.

It had told Sam that it was going to replace his eyes with orbs of glass.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been blinded by the tape, but the dark and his sleep had began to flow into each other until he wasn’t sure which was which. His memory flickered back and forth to how the doll maker had revealed the bright yellow marbles in a dusty piece of cloth like they had been gems. The thing had whispered to him softly about how perfect he soon would be while sculpting each curl of his hair with gold. Sam had slipped in and out of his dreams as he slept and woke. For a while he heard gravel under his boots as he walked down a dark road with his brother at his side. Dean had been telling him a story, a story about a skeleton that would rise from its grave and dance in the candlelight…

_Sam. Sammy...!._

Sam frowned at the change in his brother’s voice. He wanted Dean to tell him the rest of the story. He wanted to know what happened to the skeleton when the candle finally went out.

_Sam, please help me.  
I’m drowning. I can’t breathe. I can’t-_

“D-Dean?”

Sam heard himself groan as the fog of the road quickly faded away. The dark was suddenly filled with a blistering heat and a strange shrill sound of something in pain. With a wave of confusion, Sam slowly comprehended there was no longer any rope around his wrists or tight chain biting into his neck. He wasn’t even on that damn table.

Sam realized he was standing up.

Moving his hands to his face, he felt the smooth plastic covering his eyes. Digging his fingernails into the paint on his face he ripped at the tape, gasping as it peeled away from his eyelids. Blinded for so long he stumbled backwards from the dizzying blaze of the fire right in front of him. Turning up his palms he blinked at the black streaks of ash that covered his hands. He could still feel the weight of the iron poker and the feel of it sinking into the creature’s frail body.

“What… What happened?” he rasped. “Dean? W-What did I do?”

The body in the hearth had stopped moving, its flesh over fueling the fire and causing the flames to lick up over the bricks. Sam staggered towards the table he’d been laying on, his eyes beginning to burn as sweat mixed with the paint on his face. He groped through the monster’s carefully arrayed tools until he found a clean looking cloth and a rusted bucket filled with water. After a few minutes of scrubbing the burning receded to a dull sting. He stared down at his gold hands and knew he had to get it all off. It was smothering him as slowly and as surely as being held under water until he drowned-

Sam went cold as he remembered his brother’s plea in his dream.

His vision was blurred, the fire too bright and big to see much else. Wiping the damp cloth over his eyes a few more times he held his arm up to better see in the shadows. The table Dean had been on was in the other corner, under an old chandelier and an open window. His skin prickled with fear as he got closer, his brother’s silence quickening his unsteady step. There was the sudden and terrible thought that maybe Dean had been taken away, placed for display for some hiker to find in the woods. But to his relief Dean was there just as he’d last seen him before the tape had been placed over his eyes…

Sam paused uncertainly.

For a moment he thought he had somehow slipped back into the dream of the dark roadside. Because instead of his brother there was a skeleton laying on the table flickering under the orange light of the flames. The skull had a wide set of perfect teeth and gaping eye sockets. The ribs lay in perfect symmetry along with the fine network of the wrists and fingers. A subtle curve to the pelvis and the straight lines of the femur. Dean had told him in the dream that the skeleton would live until the candle dwindled and died on its wick. And when the light went out the bones would collapse back in the grave where they belonged.

Sam reached out towards the skeleton, his trembling fingers feeling nothing but smooth plastic at first. But then he felt the body heat underneath and the soft yield of flesh when he pushed at the black and white paint.

“Dean?

It was then that his vision adjusted enough to see the black eye sockets weren’t completely black. His brother’s eyes hadn’t been sealed or painted over, they were open, the green of his pupils rolled back in his head until only the whites were showing. Sam’s shaking hands felt Dean’s face, the adhesive that had been spread on his eyelashes were forcing his eyes to stay wide open.

“H-Hey, I’m here,” Sam squeezed Dean’s hand as hard as he could. “I’m right here, okay?”

Dean moaned in a strange muffled way. Sam looked in a panic at the bucket with a few inches of water left before he looked over at the staircase. There had to be a bathroom in this place and it had to have running water. But water wasn’t going to do much. Sam moved fast, reading the peeling labels on the old jars and jugs that sat among the brushes and tools.

“It’ll be all right, Dean,” Sam said. “I-I got you.”

With a wave of dizziness he had to brace himself against the table until the sickening sensation passed. His skin itched and prickled as his body struggled to sweat through the layers of gold paint. The toxic chemicals he found had been used on his brother made his heart thud faster in his chest. Sam hadn’t been coated with even half of this stuff and all he wanted to do was lay down and close his eyes.

Righting himself, Sam clenched his fists and took a deep breath.

He had to hurry this up.

 

 

 

 

Sam didn't expect the first room he saw at the top of the staircase to be a cozy bedroom. It was warmly lit by a lamp on the bedside table and filled almost wall to wall with a large four poster bed. Sam had to force himself not to go check to see what was laying under the threadbare quilt. He knew he wasn’t going to startle an elderly wife who had retired so she could rise early in the morning to tend the overgrown garden. And he knew whoever the unlucky soul had been to play the part of the beast’s sleeping companion was far beyond anyone’s help. The rest of the upper floor wasn’t lit but the few bulbs that were in the sockets flickered on when Sam tested the switches.

He steadied himself with a hand on the wall as his eyes adjusted in the dim light.

There were more bodies lining the hallway waiting like sentries in the dark. Sam moved quickly past them and tried not to look at the grotesque sag of their painted skins. The creature that had recreated them had been a brilliant artist but apparently hadn’t been quite as skilled in the art of taxidermy. Sam breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the end of the corridor. Not only had he found the room he was looking for, he had more importantly found a large cast iron bathtub that was connected to plumbing that actually worked. He twisted the hot and cold faucets on full blast before sorting through the jugs he’d brought with him.

Turpentine. Rubbing alcohol. Acetone.

The fire was still crackling and hot when he returned to the first floor.

Dean twitched when Sam’s hands gripped his arms and got ready to haul him up. But Sam quickly realized he wouldn’t be able to remove Dean easily from the worktable.

“I’m here,” Sam told him. “Can you hear me?”

He figured that the doll maker had probably left his brother alone to allow all the coats of sealant to set so none of the careful brush work would be marred. Dean let out a strained groan when Sam unstuck one arm at a time from the wood table and then began to work each leg loose. By the time Sam had sat him up, Dean was breathing too hard, his chest heaving as he wheezed for air. Sam watched as Dean’s eyes rolled again, his eyelids fixed open with glue.

“I-I’m sorry,” Sam had soaked a rag in acetone. “I gotta do this.”

Sam began to wipe the rag over Dean’s forehead, mumbling another apology when Dean jerked violently in his arms as the solvent dripped into his eyes. When Dean was finally able to blink, Sam quickly poured clean water over his face until he finally focused on Sam, tears streaking the black paint down his cheeks.

“Say something,” Sam said. “Please…”

Dean groaned again, weakly trying to raise his hands to his face. Sam decided not to wait around for a more coherent response. Maneuvering Dean off the table, Sam hefted his brother’s dead weight up into his arms to begin the climb up the stairs.

The bathroom was foggy with steam from the running water.

Sam lowered Dean as gently as he could into the filling tub. There was only a few inches of water in it but Dean jerked in Sam’s hands when he made contact with the water. Cursing under his breath, Sam stuck his hand under the faucet and found it was near boiling. Twisting the cold on as far as it could go, he grabbed the turpentine and poured it over a towel. He wasn’t sure where to start first so he started scrubbing at Dean’s chest, the reek of the paint thinner mixing with the steam making him swallow back a wave of nausea. Although he’d opened the small window all the way it go the fumes were already making him sick to his stomach.

“Dean, try-try to stay still,” Sam coughed. “It’s going to be okay.”

The outer layer of sealant started to quickly dissolve, and to Sam’s surprise he was able to peel some of it off. And to his incredible relief the thick paint started to come off with it in long strips. Sam pulled at the delicate creation of white ribs away exposing pink skin beneath. Another layer came away off Dean’s hip and down his leg. Sam tossed the slimy strips behind him, dully reminded of the feel of a shape shifters shedding skin.

Dean’s shaking hands suddenly stopped him.

“What?” Sam had to force himself to stop scrubbing. “What is it?”

Dean’s hands were at his mouth, his jaw working like he wanted to say something but all he could do was make more of that muffled noise. And then all of a sudden it occurred to Sam why it was that his brother hadn’t been speaking.

Sam blinked in disbelief.

He worked his fingers around Dean’s mouth and found his lips had been sealed shut. Sam felt another wash of nausea as he thought of how Dean’s eyes had been fixed open too. Holding his brother’s face, he checked and found his ears had been sealed as well. The spackle had been smoothed in almost perfectly but Sam was able to work it loose until it started to crumble away in his fingers. Dean’s face was smeared with gold paint by the time he was done, Dean’s mouth bruised and bleeding.

“Almost done,” Sam assured him. “Stay with me.”

As soon as his lips parted Dean hissed in a breath of air, choking and coughing. He growled and thrashed under Sam’s hands when Sam tried to wipe the blood away from his mouth. That was when Sam realized it hadn’t been just Dean’s lips that had been glued closed.

“Christ,” Sam said. “Your teeth…”

He had to sit back for a second.

He had to take another deep breath and just think.

“Can you breathe?“ Sam asked. “Can you breathe okay?”

Ignoring the question, Dean was trying to talk, a hissing plea behind clenched teeth. His hands, the fingers still fused together, were now pushing down between his legs. Besides the hot water and solvents Sam could think of about one hundred reasons why Dean would be experiencing an extra special kind of pain down there. If the paint irritated the skin on his face, Sam wasn’t even sure he wanted to know what it felt like anywhere else. But Dean was making an angry desperate sound that Sam thought he understood. Stripping this shit off didn’t feel good, and whether Dean liked it or not, Sam had to use the same chemicals and harsh scrubbing there too.

“-sam,” Dean rasped. “- _hurts._ ”

“I know,” Sam tried to smooth his hand through Dean’s sticky white hair. “I’m going as fast as I can. Don’t worry, I’ll get all this washed off and then--”

Dean started to writhe like he was being burned.

“What? What is it?” Sam felt the panic he was barely keeping under control start to take over. Dean‘s hands were back between his legs, desperately reaching between his thighs. “Okay, okay, just let me look, just let me look…”

He took Dean’s hands away and wondered with a sinking dread if he had missed some injury. Some kind of mutilation or wound that they hadn’t found on any of the other dolls. But Sam could feel nothing but the sticky sealant and the greasy feel of dissolving paint. Then Sam abruptly remembered the coroners reports he had read and reread for all those weeks on the hunt. Besides the cosmetics, most of the bodies had been prepared in other ways for short term preservation. Sam slid his hand lower and felt the edge of the hard plastic that Dean had been trying so hard to reach.

“Fuck.” Sam breathed as he tried to get a grip on it. “I get it. Calm down… I get it.”

His brother’s body tensed, his breathing coming in shorter frantic gasps.

“Oh man,” Sam said. “This is gonna be bad, Dean.”

He was glad when Dean let him shut his eyes. Dean even covered Sam’s hand with his own. Sam was real glad. Because the next agonized sound Dean didn’t attempt to smother made him wish he couldn’t watch either.

 

 

 

 

 

He doused the place with a few jugs of the solvent and lit a match.

Sam waited until the flames spread to the second floor of the old house before he left. The motel wasn’t very far away, just under an hour on the highway that met the meander of the unpaved mountain roads. When he opened the door to their room he could still smell the lingering scent of turpentine and soap. He’d cleaned most of himself off, but he had made sure Dean was practically spotless before he finally let him rest.

And his brother was right where he left him.

Sam paused at the bed and put a hand on Dean’s head. The only thing he hadn’t gotten off was the paint in his hair, shocking and stark white like a skeleton’s bleached bones. Moving his hand to Dean’s forehead he frowned at the fever that was flushing his cheeks red. His brother roused under his touch, blinking groggily up at him with uncertainty before he realized who it was.

“It’s all gone,” Sam told him. “Doubt anyone will even report a fire.”

“Good.“ Dean slowly rubbed a hand sleepily across his bloodshot eyes. “Uh saw fire.”

“What?”

“Fire.”

“Don’t try to talk, dude,” Sam said. “Just try to sleep.”

“Fire.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Sam hadn’t been able to do anything about the glue used in Dean’s mouth. Besides pouring paint thinner down his throat the only other thing Sam could think of was to just give it some time to break down on its own. The way Dean kept grinding his jaw Sam didn’t think it would take very long anyway. But it looked like the fever was giving Dean a few hallucinations to go along with it.

“…it was in yur eyes,” Dean mumbled. “Saw it.”

Sam rubbed his fingers together, the red and yellow paint that had covered his own face still in the creases of his palms. His thoughts flashed to the moment he woke standing and realized he’d killed the doll maker. The blistering fire had licked the ceiling as the beast had burned alive and Sam couldn’t remember one moment before he’d plunged the fire poker into its body.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“ _Cold._ ”

Sam dragged the quilt off the other bed and put it over Dean.

“Better?”

“No.”

A shiver ran through him as Sam lay down on the bed, a hand absently wiping across his own forehead beaded with a cold sweat. He got in as close to Dean as he could and wrapped one arm under his shoulder.

“Now?” Sam asked.

His brother made a noncommittal sound as his eyes slipped closed again.

Sam wanted to sleep but he turned on the television instead, glancing down at Dean to make sure the volume didn’t bother him. It never had before but there was a first for everything. With a yawn, he checked his watch and counted the hours until dawn. There was doctor a few towns over that agreed to see them see them though it was a Sunday. Sam pulled the blankets closer over them both and flipped the channels until he found something he could concentrate on without thinking too much. Another night of lost sleep was nothing he was going to miss.

Especially the dreams.


End file.
